If the Cavaliers coach followed through, what did we learn?
One, Derrick Rose still has some moves and can produce.
Beyond that, we can use Cleveland’s distribution of playing time and apply Basketball-Reference’s projected win shares per 48 minutes to estimate the number of wins each Cavalier will account for:
| Player | MIN | WS/48 | Projected wins |
| LeBron James | 31:48 | 0.278 | 15.1 |
| Kevin Love | 35:06 | 0.221 | 13.3 |
| Kyrie Irving | 38:31 | 0.12 | 7.9 |
| Anderson Varejao | 23:27 | 0.144 | 5.8 |
| Shawn Marion | 24:04 | 0.096 | 3.9 |
| Tristan Thompson | 23:37 | 0.096 | 3.9 |
| Matthew Dellavedova | 22:42 | 0.082 | 3.2 |
| Dion Waiters | 32:33 | 0.038 | 2.1 |
| Mike Miller | 8:05 | 0.115 | 1.6 |
| Lou Amundson | 0:07 | 0.053 | 0.0 |
| Total | 56.7 |
This is obviously far from a fool-proof system.
I don’t know how closely Blatt, despite his stated intentions, followed the script he intends to use during the regular season. I’m not convinced LeBron will rank just fourth on the team in minutes. Injuries will happen. Players like James Jones and Joe Harris, even if not in the rotation, will account for some minutes throughout the season.
But this is another data point, one not too far from the Las Vegas over/under of 58.5 wins.